Working with wood has a long and storied legacy at the Preserve. Many of our historic structures are made of wood and showcase artistic carvings.
Architect Duncan Candler, who designed the Playhouse and Rest House on the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden landscape incorporated creative flourishes into these buildings. Charles Savage, designer of the Asticou Azalea Garden, Thuya Garden, and Asticou Terraces, carved or commissioned carvings by his cousin Augustus "Gus" Phillips to create hand-hewn art on gates, fences, pavilions, and signage.
The Preserve is committed to conserving and carrying on this legacy. Staff member Bret Welch has taken up the mantle of restoring and rebuilding all things wooden at the Preserve.
Since he joined the Preserve in the spring of 2020, Bret has taken on myriad projects that require precision, patience, and a deep knowledge of wood. He started slowly by building basic shelving and doing some interior renovation work but his interests and skills in woodworking have steadily evolved over the past four years.
Bret did not see himself as a traditional carpenter. He honed his skills working for a local contractor building houses. “Mostly everything I had done in carpentry was entirely geometric,” says Bret. “My senior project at College of the Atlantic was to build a tiny house for myself to live in. Things needed to be very accurate and fit together precisely.”
At the Preserve, many projects require those precise skills. Bret has had his hands full rebuilding hundreds of feet of decades-old wooden fencing and gates damaged by moisture. The Rest House also needed significant repair and restoration work before it could be used for the artist-in-residence program.
Perhaps being surrounded by beautiful woodwork at the Preserve sparked Bret’s latent artistry. Early on, he spotted a lathe in the back of the carpenter’s shop. “I hadn't ever touched a lathe. I played around with it and ended up delving into some creative bowl work.” This sort of work gave Bret a deeper appreciation of wood as a medium and a desire to include more handwork and carving in his work. The Preserve's commitment to staff professional development enabled Bret to pursue his passion for wood carving.
Sponsored by the Preserve, this past summer Bret enrolled in a spoon carving class at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, ME. “It was probably the most rewarding creative experience I've had in my life so far,” says Bret. The class introduced him to hand tools for carving and shaping wood. He has become more comfortable with tools like chisels, axes, planers, gouges, and knives and is using them in some of his work at the Preserve.
Bret is employing his newfound skills to create signs with hand carved features for the Abby Garden landscape. Bret, with Ethan Klein, Custodian/Facilities Tradesperson at the Preserve, created the fluting on the signs by hand. Visitors will see these white oak masterpieces next season.
“I am drawn to it,” says Bret. “It's not uniform. You could do all this carving with a router and get super pristine lines, and everything is equally spaced. It’s also really fast. But that isn't really the aesthetic of the Preserve. Hand carved signs look the same from a distance, but up close you can see some lines are wider than others and not necessarily straight.”
This winter Bret is working with Thuya Groundskeeper Liz Perry to create a small kiosk for the Thuya Dock with a hand-carved box that will hold a registration log for boaters.
When a deteriorating structure is aesthetically and historically significant, the Preserve approaches restoration thoughtfully. Such is the case with the Thuya Garden roadside sign on Peabody Drive. Carved by Charles Savage in 1968 from a solid piece of hardwood, the sign has weathered to a point that wood is crumbling, and the painted lettering has mostly worn away. It is almost unreadable from the road. Bret will undertake a faithful reproduction of the sign this winter.
The craftsmanship woven into the fabric of the Preserve’s history is alive and thriving under the care of skilled hands like Bret’s. His talent and dedication embody the Preserve’s commitment to honoring tradition while ensuring these treasures endure for future generations. With every carved sign, restored fence, and rebuilt structure, the legacy of woodwork at the Preserve continues to flourish, connecting past artistry with today’s stewardship.
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